


Through a Glass, Darkly

by The Hag (hagsrus)



Category: The Professionals
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-18
Updated: 2010-07-18
Packaged: 2017-10-10 15:30:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/101269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hagsrus/pseuds/The%20Hag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Tea and Swiss Roll  Weekly Obbo Challenge #53(B): Reflection</p><p>Memory of episode: The Rack</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through a Glass, Darkly

_They're all murdering bastards._

He'd dreamed he was lost in the bleak basement room where the enquiry had been held, the room where Paul Coogan had died, the wall prophetically scrawled with the swastika-accented message, searching for the way out, searching....

Four in the morning. Glad to wake, he slid out of bed and made his chilly trip to the bog, then to the kitchen, faint light from the street illuminating his way.

He stood for a moment staring out at the sleeping world, then switched on the fluorescent strip above the sink and filled a mug with water. The window became a dim mirror, his reflection less solid than the street outside on which it was superimposed.

The autopsy report: "Died as a result of one blow or several blows that ruptured his spleen. The blow or blows delivered by a clenched fist."

After all this time he could still recall the thud of his vengeful fist into Paulie Coogan's gut, though the pain of the kidney punch that had provoked it was no more than a wisp of memory.

_Not my fault. He was already injured._

Yes, Paul had attacked him. Painful. But self-defence? No. That's what they'd claimed, but no. There'd been no real threat except to his pride, smarting from John Coogan's dismissive "Not enough weight."

_Enough weight behind that punch..._

"You know what they made of me, don't you?" he'd demanded of Bodie.

_But when was I ever different? Endless fights when I was a kid, just for the hell of it, the adrenaline rush of it. Tried to put a lid on it when I joined the police, make a difference, be a force for peace instead of violence. Channelled it into that boxing championship, exalted by the cheers and whistled approval as I delivered punch after punch and triumphantly beat them all down._

"I cut up another kid and I was just a kid meself," he'd told Bodie. "And I got away with it...."

_Didn't get away with this one. The mills of God keep grinding._

Not proven, that's not a verdict of innocent. And I'll never know for sure if it was my fist that finished him off.

"I'll leave you to wallow in your own self-pity," Bodie had said, jolting him into an abrupt and humiliating shift of his image of himself.

It had got to him, the strength of Bodie's concern for the Old Man, the jettisoning of the "look after number one" façade. "Don't do as I say..."

_Put away childish things.... Stop bloody sulking and get on with it!_

They'd sat and looked at each other for a long moment, face to face. Had it been then that the long-present sparks of heart warmth had begun their slow smoulder into love?

He swallowed the last of the water and set the mug on the draining board.

"Murdering bastard," he said aloud to that transparent reflection of himself, and flipped off the light. Whatever he was, life had to be lived, and most of it was good.

Still: "Murdering bastard," he muttered as he climbed back into bed, and Bodie briefly surfaced to mumble, "Aren't we all, mate," and plunge back into sleep.

Doyle lay against his warmth and stared at the darkness and wondered whether some dawn or other would let him wake and say the words and finally believe they weren't true.


End file.
